Dispatches from Bogotà: ICFP 2025

November 05, 2025

GHN is honored to be on the ground in Bogotà, Colombia, for the International Conference on Family Planning 2025—the first ever held in Latin America.

Global Health NOW is honored to join the ~800 organizations, 50+ governments, and 2,000 researchers, practitioners, and other experts gathered in Bogotà November 3-6.

You'll find some conference takeaways below, including briefs on the state of family planning, the linkages between climate change and sexual and reproductive health rights (SRHR), efforts to expand the circle of partners and allies, and professional development resources. —Dayna Kerecman Myers

The Numbers

ICFP 2025 opened earlier this week with powerful new evidence that makes the case for family planning to not only save lives, but drive economic empowerment.

Here’s a snapshot of some takeaways from FP2030's Impact Report, starting with a startling stat:

Overall, the world has added 101 million more users of modern contraception since 2012, and demonstrated marked progress in expanding method choice, says FP2030's Jason Bremmer in a media briefing on the report.
But: Not all countries have seen progress–and progress is threatened by the financing landscape for family planning, and more than 80% of the funding for family planning that spurred this progress has come from countries that have already announced aid cuts.
New this year: This year’s report launches a key resource for Latin America and the Caribbean, with a new data aggregator observatory from the region.

Faith in Family Planning:

When Dina Chaerani was a child, her mother told her that she was made from flowers.

In Indonesia, where 98% of the population is Muslim, parents do not typically talk openly about sex with their children, and schools don't offer sex ed, Chaerani, a programme associate at the YIELD Hub, explains.

But now, she’s leading programs to incorporate Islamic values into sexual education programs for Indonesia, working with youth groups as well as religious leaders to incorporate the ILM Islamic principles and concept of masala, or collective well-being, in projects to promote reproductive justice.

Key lessons:

Look for local connections; don’t frame it as a foreign idea.
Bring a companion topic that is less controversial into education efforts; for example, she included lessons about nutrition and preventing stunting in a project to teach young mothers about reproductive health issues—and welcome fathers into the lessons.

Added bonus: Mothers and fathers share parenting more equally because they realize that fathers and mothers are both important, Chaerani says.

Fails for the win:

A Johns Hopkins Center for Communication Programs session on normalizing failure provided a dose of professional development, featuring five panelists brave enough to share a work “fail,” and how they channeled it for growth.
Barnabas Abok, deputy director, of the Women's Integrated Sexual Health (WISH 2) Project for the International Planned Parenthood Federation's Africa Regional Office, shared a time that a high-stakes project—with tough goals to meet in order to get paid—fell far behind in one country, requiring a two-week trip to the country to reframe with goals that made sense for the local context.
Pro tip for managers: Abok added that his experience also helped him value strong, supportive leadership. He was grateful they didn’t fixate on the failure; instead, the pointed him in the right direction and asked him how we wanted to fix it.